During the flight of a fiber optic guided missile, a thin strand of fiber optic cable is spooled out from the pack of the missile. One end of the fiber is attached to the Airborne Electronics Unit (AEU) in the missile and the other end is attached to the Ground Electronics Unit (GEU) or the aircraft electronic unit from which the missile is launched. To ensure a successful flight without utilizing actual flight hardware, fiber optic payout testing is performed in the laboratory. A successful test is considered to be one in which the fiber does not fail and no turns count anomalies are seen in the played back data. Fiber is wound onto a conical mandrel in a very precise manner, called a Precision Wind. The fiber is held onto the mandrel with adhesive. If the adhesive is behaving as required the fiber will payout from the mandrel in the same precise manner.
At the present time there exists no noncomputer based system that can actively search for turns count anomalies. The present method to detect the presence of such an anomaly is by means of computer software, high-speed video, or the laborious process of slow motion playback of recorded payout data. All of these processes are time consuming and costly. The high speed video method has not proven very reliable because the camera triggering is not consistent enough or fast enough to catch every payout turn.
An object of this invention is to provide a real-time detector for turns count anomaly.
Another object of the invention is to provide a marker at the area of incidence of turns count anomaly which allows correlation of payout failure with the presence of turns count anomalies.
A further object of the invention is to provide a detector for automatic detection of turns count anomalies.